Friday, July 9, 2010

5 Petal Flower Jewels

Cupcakes are all the rage these days! Check out the project that Christine Ammel completed with our 5 Petal Flower Jewel mold.

I had some leftover batter for a cake I’m doing this week, so I made mini cupcakes for my younger daughter’s preschool teachers. I put a swirl of white or lavender buttercream on each cupcake and topped them with a variety of flowers, hearts, and butterflies. I thought this presented me with a perfect opportunity to try out the 5 Petal Flower Jewels mold from Decorate The Cake.

I first tried making the flowers with fondant. Each flower is 1.5” across so it requires very little fondant. I’d say about a half to three-quarters inch ball. Just press it into the mold and play with it a bit to get it inside the lines. The flower released beautifully from the mold! I dusted the flowers with luster dust after taking them out of the mold, but I also tried dusting the mold before putting in the fondant. Either way creates a nice sparkly flower. I added a small fondant pearl for the center of the flower. But it just wasn’t “gem”-y enough for me.

So I went ahead and tried my hand at poured sugar. I put some clear venuance pearls in a small ramekin and melted them in the microwave (about 30 seconds or so) . Then I stirred in some purple candy color to make a deep purple color. I had to re-melt the “sugar” after that because it had already begun to set up. I then poured the molten sugar into the silicone mold that had been sprayed with cooking spray. The individual molds are small so I didn’t do such a great job of staying inside the lines. Fortunately, the sugar cools fairly quickly and within a minute, it was cool enough to handle and I pushed it better into the mold. I did have some stringy pieces which I think I will be able to handle better as I work with poured sugar more. But for a first time, I thought it turned out pretty well. Again, I added a small pearl of fondant for the center.

The teachers at my daughter’s preschool were so surprised by the delivery this morning. Their appreciation makes the work so worthwhile!